Be Sure Thy Sins...
by InterNutter
Summary: Events surrounding Kurt's first use of his power catch up with him. Rated for references to experimentation on Mutants and harsh language. Complete fic!


Disclaimer: X-Men: Evolution is owned by a whole bunch of people who  
could sue my arse off if the temptation struck them to do so.  
Thankfully, fanfic isn't exactly the world's biggest breach of the  
copyright laws as long as we write disclaimers. Everything else below is  
mine. Except for a few ideas I 'borrowed' :) Hey, imitation is a sincere  
form of flattery!  
  
Big Thanks To: The author of "The Impossibles" [I think that's the  
title] on Fanfict.net... I just happen to figure that the good ol' US of  
A is a teensy bit more likely to tread liberally on the rights of  
foreigners and other non-WASPs [White Anglo-Saxon Protestants] in the  
name of self-defense.  
  
Archiving: Email cat@devil.com and ask nice :) Comments can also go to  
this address :)  
  
Coding info: Since fanfic is wont to turn up on web pages, I've  
deliberately avoided anything to do with greater-than or less-than  
signs, because they tend to screw up HTML something chronic. Hence;  
asterisks (*) denote emphasis, underscores (_) thoughts or italics,  
curly brackets ({}) sound effects and square brackets ([]) foreign  
languages. I refuse point blank to codify accents, as it winds up  
reading like lousy spelling :) I have enough trouble with that as it is.  
  
Rating: PG-13 for language and violence. Yes, some people drop the 'F'  
word from a great height. Frequently. If you get into trouble for being  
caught reading this, don't come whingeing to me. You *were* warned.  
  
ObInfo: The title of this enchanting little tale is from a phrase my Mum  
used to quote. I'm fairly certain that it's more old English than  
biblical. The whole quote is, "Be sure thy sins will find thee out",  
meaning that if you do anything wrong, you're going to get busted for it  
sooner or later.  
  
Be Sure Thy Sins...  
InterNutter  
  
From the outside, it looked just like yet another building that had  
been made out of an old aircraft hangar. Doctor Emily Bain knew better,  
and hated the place. They hurt children in there, and they compounded  
the felony by making her help them.  
Not tonight, though. Tonight was different. Tonight, the consequences  
of her actions were going to blow this place wide open.  
No more filthy little secrets. No more innocent victims.  
  
Another nightmare; another memory.  
The other kids had talked him into playing hide-and-seek, then  
subsequently forgotten that he was hiding at all. Then again, maybe  
they'd 'forgotten' on purpose as another excuse to laugh at him. Kurt  
sighed, wondering whether it was worth giving up yet. His current hiding  
place - in the baggage car of the long, cross-country train - was a  
place of quiet solitude and peace. Why should he leave here just to be  
stared at?  
It was a terrible thing to be just past thirteen *and* a blue fuzzy  
elf.  
Soothed by the solitude and the steady rythm of the train on its  
tracks, Kurt fell asleep between Gilda's ever-expanding wardrobe and a  
gigantic package bound for somewhere he couldn't pronounce. His last  
conscious thought was the disbelief that a place such as 'Poughkeepsie'  
even existed...  
It was cold, still and silent when he woke up, and the baggage car was  
terrifyingly empty. There was only him, and the tatty old blanket that  
concealed him.  
_Calm. Stay calm,_ he schooled himself. His parents had drilled him in  
various separation emergency procedures since he'd been old enough to  
understand he was different. First, concealment of his appearance.  
Check. The blanket could hide a lot, and people rarely looked as far  
down as his feet. Kurt wrapped his tail around his waist and opened the  
door.  
Second, reconnoiter and find an authority. Not so check... The baggage  
car was concealed within a maze of cars, and there was only the harsh  
glare of halogen lights as any sort of reference point.  
_Ah, well, nothing ventured, nothing gained..._ One last paranoid  
shrug into the blanket and a prayer that he would only come home with  
fleas - instead of broken bones or bruises - and he went on his way.  
Surprisingly, no-one attempted to arrest him for vagrancy on his  
travels through the train yard. No doubt he made quite a picture, what  
with the blanket-cloak being the main thing visible about him. Hopefully  
this wasn't one of those places that just had cameras and dogs; there  
*had* to be some kind of guard, or watchman.  
He hoped.  
At long last, he spotted a tiny little shed, just big enough for the  
sort of office a watchman would keep. He all but bolted for it in his  
relief. Of course, he was winded by the time he reached it, but he  
babbled his whole story to the man anyway, in-between concealing his  
face with great gouts of steam from his breath.  
The man in the office drew a tallymark on a board and waited for Kurt  
to finish. "With the circus, eh? Where were you *supposed* to stop?"  
Kurt told him.  
"Kid, that station's fifteen miles *that* way. Listen, I get off in a  
couple of minutes anyway. I can give a ride."  
"Just like that?"  
"Of course," said the watchman. "At your age, you're going to catch  
all colours of hell from your parents and friends, so why should I add  
to it, yes?"  
"I can pay for petrol," Kurt offered. "I have nearly twenty marks..."  
"Forget about it, kid. My car's parked on the lee side. It's  
unlocked."  
"*Thank* you sir! Thank you!"  
"Damn kids..." the watchmen muttered as soon as Kurt was out of sight.  
"One every other week."  
Kurt had nearly finished thawing out when the watchman arrived to  
wrestle his weight into the driver's seat.  
"Go on, kid, put your seatbelt on."  
_Uh oh..._ How in the name of anything was he going to do *this*  
without revealing himself? "Uh..."  
"Taking off the blanket might help," prompted the watchman.  
_Yeah, but not much. Time for truth or dare._ "I told you I was with  
the circus? Well, I - I don't like showing my face much. I - kind of  
scare people."  
The watchman muttered an oath. "I've lived through two wars and seen a  
hell of a lot, my lad. There's little in heaven or earth that can scare  
me. Now, it's either off with the blanket, or waiting until dawn to see  
how far nearly twenty marks will get you."  
"Uhhh..."  
The watchman rolled his eyes. "Fine. I can see for myself." He reached  
across to Kurt's improvised hood.  
Kurt reached up to stop him just as the hood fell back.  
"God in heaven!" The watchman recoiled and hit the driver's door as if  
he'd forgotten where he was, and groped for a gun that wasn't there.  
Kurt didn't bother hanging around long enough to find out where the  
weapon was. He was out of the door and running like hell itself was  
after him within seconds. At least he retained enough sense to hang on  
to the damned blanket - he was going to need it on a night like this...  
His muscles finally flagged after he'd gone quite a distance 'that  
way' as the watchman had put it. Well, there were *some* plus points to  
being able to run like a quadruped after all. The minuses, of course,  
included the fact that it scared the living hell out of most people.  
Now, all he had to cope with was the town in his way. And the fact  
that dawn was fast approaching.  
Kurt ignored his stomach's rumbling and sunned himself while staring  
down at the small city. He'd have to find out, and soon, exactly how far  
nearly twenty marks would get him.  
That was, he would find out in a few minutes, going to be the least of  
his problems.  
A passing car on the back road Kurt had just crossed pulled to a stop.  
He instinctively hunched under the rock that shielded him from any map-  
readers. Footsteps tread their way across the dirt track, and an  
anonymous hand picked Kurt up by his neck.  
Screaming for help was out, he *knew* it, but he screamed for help  
anyway. Struggling, by and large, was pointless, but he struggled  
nevertheless. The large man who held him so hard that he gave Kurt bone  
bruises was determined. To do what, Kurt couldn't see.  
A few painful jabs to various nerve clusters rendered his arms and  
legs painful masses of flesh before the large man just dumped Kurt on  
the hood of his truck. Just like a fresh-killed deer. Kurt's tail, the  
only thing he had control of so far, lashed helplessly against the  
metal. Sure, he *could* hold up his own weight with the extra limb, but  
that only counted when dangling. His tail could not, for example, help  
him drag himself out of this mess. There was no leverage.  
The large man, shadowed in black leather and rubber, returned with a  
cut-throat razor in one hand and some mysterious apparatus under his  
other arm.  
There was no hope.  
Tears in Kurt's eyes blurred out what the stranger was doing with the  
other stuff, besides laying out bits and pieces of it on the hood next  
to him. _Please, God..._ he mentally begged. _Make something happen.  
*Anything*. I just want to be back with my parents and safe and the heck  
away from *this* guy... Please, please, please..._  
The stranger was humming something under his breath as he siezed  
Kurt's left wrist.  
"Please..." Kurt whispered.  
The razor descended, neatly removing some of his fur from the  
underside of his arm. Then it descended again, cutting into his flesh.  
Terror and pain and adrenoline and the desperate need to get *out* of  
there combined, and flipped a tiny little switch in the back of Kurt's  
head.  
{BAMF!}  
The next thing he knew, he was on the other side of the town, in a  
world of pain, and descending into unconsciousness - not to mention a  
bunch of rocks. *Sharp* rocks.  
  
Kurt woke early. Great. Not even dawn yet and he'd had *that* dream  
again. Well, at least *this* time he could be ready for school in  
advance. Maybe. If he didn't drift off in the shower like last time.  
Maybe he could ask the Professor if there was some way he could turn  
off the nightmare/memories for him. Mess with his head, and make it a  
less scary place in which to live. Sure, humour and practical joking  
helped to distract his brain from dragging him through the top two  
hundred all-time worst memories he had, but sleep just let it kick him  
in the back.  
He glared blearily at the clock. Four in the morning. Too late to  
catch some meaningful Z's and too early to do anything lest he risk  
waking people up. Wonderful.  
What the heck happened at four in the morning anyway?  
  
Sparrows were chittering in the pre-dawn gloom, sending bell-like  
noises echoing from building to building. Emily didn't have her mind on  
the birds this morning. Her mind was on the two bundles concealed in the  
footwell near the back seat. Hopefully, no-one would notice that they  
were gone from the creche for hours. The kids were always fractious  
during shift change.  
Technically, Kylie and Kenny didn't have names, but Emily insisted on  
naming them anyway. Technically, they were Kappa-series 42471811-B and  
G. Since they were twins, they had the same serial number. Only the B  
and G distinguished the two by gender.  
Many who worked on the Base refused to think of the kids as kids,  
especially when they were kids from the Erlinstad Sample. Each one,  
unlike the other mutant clones, was unique. Each attempt to clone from  
the Erlinstad Sample resulted in something different, something  
wonderful, and someone doomed to die.  
None of the Erlinstad clones had reached a point where their X-gene  
activated. Sometimes it was due to genetic manipulation on the part of  
the Higher-Ups, sometimes it was the drugs made to accelerate their  
growth. Sometimes, unfortunately, it was just their genes working  
against them. Or so they were told.  
Emily had insisted on the conception the 'Kappa series' as a 'control  
group' when they got the Erlinstad Sample in the first place. The  
Higher-Ups hadn't liked dealing with kids growing at a normal rate. They  
wanted their super-soldier and they wanted it yesterday. So they  
compensated by producing huge 'batches' and seeing what happened next.  
The others, of course, were delighted with such a wide and varied  
study group in order to map the Erlinstad genome. Some were even  
delighted with the dissections. Emily just grew old from stress as she  
watched too many innocents suffer and die.  
Emily snapped back into the present when the Guard intoned, "Move  
along, now."  
She breathed a sigh of relief and felt twenty years younger as she was  
waved out of the gate. She would feel another decade younger when she  
was out of sight of the Base and could safely nail her foot to the  
accelerator.  
"[Are we going outside, Aunty Em?]" Kylie asked in CodeSpeak.  
That had been one barrier Emily had yet to overcome. Her secretive  
teaching of English seemed to be something that refused to stick. Maybe  
it was because she was the only one who did so - and that during the  
rare times when the Higher-Ups weren't watching.  
"[Yes, dearest; we're going outside. But we *must* be careful. Do you  
understand?]"  
"[Yes, Aunty Em,]" chorused the twins.  
"[If anything bad happens, anything bad at all, I want you two to run  
and hide. Just run and hide until someone you can trust finds you. Now  
who can you trust?]"  
"[Aunty Em!]" They shouted in unison.  
"[Who else?]" she prompted. If she died, they had to know.  
Each yelled out suggestions in turn. As always, Kylie, the dominant  
twin, went first.  
"[A policeman!]"  
"[A fireman!]"  
"[An ambulance-man!]"  
"[Someone like us!]"  
"[*Very* good, Kenny. That's exactly right. You too, Kylie.]" Emily  
knew, from covert research into the files, that the progenitor of the  
Erlinstad Sample had survived the sampling process and, judging by  
certain uniformities in the clones' physiognomy, that progenitor would  
be very distinguishable indeed.  
The last corner between her and the Base turned, Emily planted her  
foot and drove. Time, at long last, to get the hell out of Bayville. No-  
one would be around at this time of day. Hell, even the cops were asleep  
at four in the morning.  
  
4:10 AM  
"Oh. God. Oh God. OhGodOmyGodOmyGod..."  
"Shut *up*, dude. It's not even our car we totalled. *AND* we're  
alive."  
"...OmyGodOmyGodOmyGodOmyGodOmyGodOmyGod..." Steve pointed a trembling  
finger at the other car.  
"Shit," said Dave.  
The driver of the other car, the one that had come out of nowhere  
during a run-of-the-mill car heist, hadn't moved yet. Steve and Dave had  
had plenty of time to get out of their wreck and survey the scene.  
"...OmyGodOmyGodOmyGodOmyGod..."  
"Relax, dude. I know CPR," he lied. What he did know was that CPR was  
a good excuse to get a guy's wallet after you decked him. Dave marched  
towards the chick in the other car as if he knew exactly what he was  
doing.  
She wasn't bleeding much, and she was fairly well pillowed against the  
airbag. Dave risked picking up her hand by the wrist, as if checking her  
pulse. She was still warm. She looked like she was breathing...  
Fine by him.  
"She's okay, dude. Let's book!"  
"...OmyGodOmyGod..."  
"*DUDE*! *Book*!"  
Dave was so busy dragging Steve away from the crash that he didn't  
notice two little shadows open a back door and scurry into the night.  
  
4:30 AM  
"Nine one one emergency. What is your emergency?"  
"Dude, there's this, like, big ugly car crash at the corner of seventh  
and main -- Shut *UP*, dude! I'm calling them already! It's at the  
corner of seventh and main. These two kids run out of the first car, but  
there's a lady in the other one, and she ain't fuckin' movin'."  
"Are you on the scene?"  
"Hell, no, dude! It took us this fuckin' long to find a fuckin'  
payphone that *works*. I told you *shuddup*! Jeez... We saw it man. My  
friend, he's freaked out. He won't shut up. You gotta get someone there,  
like, yesterday, dude. It took us fifteen fuckin' minutes to find the  
phone."  
"Have you attempted to remove the injured person from her vehicle?"  
"SEND THE FUCKING AMBULANCE, MAN!"  
"I told you to *shut* *UP*, dude! No, we didn't touch her, I  
sweartoGod. We just booked, dude; like I said, to find a damn phone.  
It's like sixteen minutes -- OmyGod -- *twenty* fuckin' minutes. You  
assholes coulda' killed her in the time I was on fuckin' *HOLD*, dude!"  
"An emergency response vehicle is on it's way. Can you return to the  
scene in order to show them where the emergency is?"  
"No fuckin' *WAY*! We gotta get *home*, dude... We gotta book. It's on  
the corner of seventh and main, man. Just look for the ugly fuckin'  
crash - you can't fuckin' *miss* it."  
"Please hold the line while--"  
"Fuck you! We didn't do nothing!"  
Dial tone.  
  
4:50 AM  
"[Slow down, I got a stitch.]"  
"[Aunty Em said to run and hide. No matter *what*.]"  
"[Well, we did the running. Can we do the hiding now?]"  
"[No!]"  
"[But I'm *tired*...]"  
Kylie dropped into a crouch and watched her brother catch up, her tail  
thrashing in irritation. "[We gotta find somewhere safe to hide.]"  
"[I know,]" said Kenny. "[But I'm tired and my feet hurt and I'm  
hungry and I want Aunty Em.]"  
Kylie sighed. "[Maybe if we stick to the shadows that'll count as  
hiding and we can look for somewhere safe. Okay?]"  
"[I'm *cold*...]"  
She rolled her eyes and tsked. *Brothers*... Still, if she could out-  
logicalise him, she could get them safe and hidden and watching for a  
person they could trust.  
"[Aunty Em was going this way,]" Kylie pointed. "[Maybe there's a big  
safe place to hide this way, and if we don't get there, she'll be mad at  
us.]"  
"[Okay...]" sighed Kenny. "[But my feet still hurt.]"  
"[Come on. It isn't *much* further,]" Kylie lied with the confidence  
of one who's already convinced her brother that all girls shared  
thoughts.  
It was lucky for her that they found a nice place not *much* further  
along 'this way'. It was big and had nice, green, real grass and real  
plants and even some toys they recognised in the distance. It was a  
friendly place made for giants, with basketball hoops *way* up in the  
sky, and a pingpong court big enough to park cars in. *And*, Kylie was  
pleased to note, a little door just their size that lead into a nice,  
warm, and above all safe place to hide.  
It was dark inside, but not dark enough to be scary, and there were  
soft, if musty, blankets and bouncy beds piled up like in _The Princess  
and The Pea_ and even *food*.  
So it was cold food. Even safe places had little things wrong with  
them. They could easily warm up the cold food with the help of the big,  
hot things with all the pipes.  
  
"...and if we apply the cosine on the tangent, we get..."  
"...kss-zzzzz..."  
Kitty Pryde stole a glance sideways to discover that Kurt had, yet  
again, fallen asleep in math. What *was* it with the fuzzy elf and trig?  
She angled her leg and managed to kick him discreetly enough to wake him  
up without catching anyone's attention.  
"...mrf?"  
"Like, start drinking coffee, or something," she whispered. "That's  
the fifth time this week."  
"Bad night," he whispered back. "Won't happen again."  
Kitty rolled her eyes. Kurt had been having 'bad nights' of one kind  
or another since time immemorial, it seemed. She nearly freaked right  
there when he promptly began to drowse once more.  
"*Kurt*..." she poked him with her foot.  
His head fell off the hand that had been propping him up, and he  
collided with his desk.  
"*OW*!"  
Their math teacher took in the spectacle and sighed. "*Mis*ter Wagner,  
since it seems you're *still* running on German time, perhaps you'd like  
to explain to Principal Darkholme how it takes you so long to 'reset  
your internal clock'?"  
Kurt winced as the rest of the class laughed. "I suppose the answer,  
'no, not really' is out of the question?" He owned the subsequent chorus  
of giggles, and was therefore less uncomfortable with it.  
"*Spare* me," sarcasmed the teacher as he jotted down a brief note.  
"Take this to the office now, if you please."  
Someone started humming the death march.  
"That's enough out of *you*, Mister Wallace."  
"Shuttinguprightnow, sir."  
Kurt collected the note and, like all note-bearers of High School  
tradition, opened it on the way out. "Unglaublich!" He exclaimed. "Did  
you miss out on becoming a Doctor or something? And you call *me* a  
messy writer..."  
"Out, *now*, Mister Wagner," the teacher propelled him into the hall  
and shut the door.  
"How can anyone *read* this schiezen?" asked a diminishing voice from  
the hallway.  
Decorum, as they say in those funky old lit. texts, collapsed  
thereafter.  
  
Principal Darkholme took her time reading the note. Personally, Kurt  
wasn't surprised that she needed it, but since her eyes had already  
skimmed over the text twice already, he knew she was playing for tension  
time. Even though he didn't study psychology, he knew most of the tricks  
to unnerve the guy at the wrong end of the desk.  
Fortunately, he knew a few tricks himself. While he was waiting, he  
whistled under his breath, whilst playing the 'drums' against one leg.  
He had an unfair advantage at the 'drums', since his disguised tail  
provided a mystery third beat that the eye couldn't identify.  
Darkholme gave up on trying to out-sit him. "Would you like to give me  
a reason, Kurt Wagner, why I tend to see you in my office several times  
a day?"  
"I love what you've done with the potted Aspidestras?"  
The humour failed to get to her. "Quite." She angled an eyebrow at  
him. "Since multiple detentions have yet to make an impact on you, we're  
going to see what a little after-school work will do."  
"Vas?"  
"Since you have such a love of my office decor in general, and the  
plants in particular, you can help the janitorial staff this afternoon."  
"Ach..." he made a face.  
"Any objections?"  
Kurt knew *that* one. Any objections lead to more time on drudge-work.  
"Not at all, mein Furher. Not at all. I'll just be on my way to my next  
class, by your leave."  
"I'll thank you to watch your mouth too, in future; *son*."  
Ping. Definite hit. The you-know-I-know-you-know games around this  
place were getting subtle and bizarre. Darkholme - aka Mystique - and  
her emphasis on her last word reminded Kurt of something he'd been  
keeping nicely subliminalised all day - that his birth-mother was a  
psychotic blue bitch from hades.  
_Ja. And I need *that* like a kick in the tail..._  
  
Flashback...  
There are words one would really prefer to hear when returning from  
unconsciousness. Among Kurt's top ten right now were the troupe's doctor  
announcing that he was going to be fine, thank goodness they found him  
in time. Or his mother announcing the same thing.  
At the bottom of the list, of course, are phrases like, "You search  
him for money, I'll look for somewhere to bury the body."  
That, and the unmistakable debate of a curious crowd, mean age of  
four.  
"What do you think it is?"  
"Is it dead?"  
"I like the blue fur. It's soft."  
"Quit it! You could catch *fleas*."  
"Will not."  
"Will too."  
Someone poked him with a stick. Kurt managed to make a noise.  
"I told you it was alive."  
"Not."  
"Too."  
"Not."  
"Too."  
"Is it asleep?"  
"How can you tell?"  
"I've got new shoes on..."  
*That* was the current number one on the list of things he least  
wanted to hear on the edge of consciousness. Alright, maybe number two,  
by a hair, next to the sound of the wierd guy with the razor humming  
under his breath.  
None of this knowledge, however, was enough to help him open his eyes  
or move out of the way.  
*KICK*.  
  
"Earth to Wagner... Like, *Hello-ooo*..."  
"Hm?"  
"Spaced out again," Evan shook his head.  
"An' this time he's not staring at Kitty," muttered Rogue.  
Only Kitty showed concern. "You okay, fuzzy? It's like, ten minutes  
into lunch and you totally haven't tried to steal my fries yet."  
"Well, since you asked," he said, diving towards her tray. "Danke for  
the invitation."  
"HEY! Knock it off, you goofball!"  
The rest of them broke into laughter while Kitty tried to defend her  
fries from Kurt on one side and Evan on the other.  
  
"[Well? What's out there?]?  
Kylie peeked. "[People. Lots and lots of people.]"  
"[Are they good people? 'Cause I *really* gotta go...]"  
"[I don't know...]" She squinted through the grille between the people  
and herself. There was someone dressed *almost* like a nurse, but that  
didn't count. Nurses had happened in the base, too, and some of them  
were *mean*. The rest were grownups and nearly-grownups. Big kids.  
None of them looked like policemen or firemen or ambulance-men. And  
there wasn't a single one like herself or Kenny.  
"Hey! Knock it off, you goofball!"  
The words made little sense to Kylie, but they sounded like the  
English stuff that Aunty Em had tried to teach them. Only a few words  
were ones she knew for certain. Aunty Em should have *said* that people  
on the outside spoke English. It wasn't fair.  
"[Hurry up,]" Kenny whimpered. "[I *gotta* go. *Now*.]"  
Below, the big boy that had been eating fries from the big girl  
stopped playing with her and looked up. Right up at *them*. Kylie gasped  
and shot forward through the ventilation ducts. "[Run!]"  
Together, they scurried through the maze of silver aluminium.  
  
Kurt's attention was instantly nailed on the source of a familliar  
word. He'd thought, if briefly, that someone else knew German, only to  
realise that the sound had come from the grille above.  
_What in the world?_ He focussed on the grille. There was someone  
whispering in there. And then it was gone.  
As Kitty would say, something funky was going on. Well, perhaps with a  
few more 'like's and 'totally's...  
"There he goes again," said Rogue.  
"We're off to outer spaaaaaaaaaace..." sang Evan. "We're leaving  
mother Earrrrrrrrrrrrth..."  
"Clappe, Evan!" Kurt snapped. He instantly regretted it. Whenever he  
got mad, the rest of the X-Men suddenly remembered he had fangs.  
"...woo..." Evan scooted a little away from him. "I was just having a  
little fun."  
"Maybe he can't stand that stupid show either. It's like, *so* totally  
stupid..."  
Kurt fell into a defensive huddle and picked at the rest of his lunch.  
Now they were going to talk about him as if he wasn't there. That's  
right. Single out the freak...  
"Like, can you guys just - leave off?" Kitty parked herself by his  
side and rested her hand on his arm. "Something you can talk about?"  
"Nein, danke... At least - not here."  
"Do we at least get a summary?" said Evan.  
"Memories. Nightmares. Memories that are nightmares..."  
"Ouch."  
  
Flashback.  
They weren't bad kids, apart from the tendancy to think he was  
pretend. His innate honesty often came to blows with their belief that a  
whole mark was a fortune. Some even refused to take his money at all.  
Still, they bought him food and welcome, unbiased company. After a day  
or two, he didn't even mind little Eva calling him 'Mister Fluffy.' They  
were too young to be afraid, yet, and that much, Kurt appreciated.  
He listened indulgently to their news, all about how kindergarden  
went, and who got in trouble for drawing tails on the pictures of  
Grover, and what Teacher thought of all their drawings and paintings  
that featured a smiling blue demon. He'd definitely made an impression.  
Every time they came, he asked if they'd seen a circus car come into  
town. Someone would have to come looking for him, and Kurt preferred  
that it would be his parents, or at least someone from the troupe. The  
kids loved the idea of a circus coming to their little town of  
Erlinstad, and every time he asked, he had to explain that it wasn't the  
whole circus, just his mother and father looking for him. *Then* he had  
to explain that his parents looked just like normal people, and nothing  
at all like him.  
He hadn't dared ask about the man in the black truck. Yet the kids had  
told him anyway. They'd said a big man in leather had come around asking  
if they'd seen a funny blue monkey, and how they'd all said 'no' because  
they knew that monkeys didn't talk, but Kurt did. He, in turn, had told  
them how that particular stranger was a bad man, and told them the story  
of his 'ouch' - the now-bandaged wound on his left arm - and how the  
stranger had made it.  
The children, bless their little souls, nodded grimly and started  
laying traps around Kurt's hiding place.  
Then came the day when Eva refused an extra candy for 'Mister Fluffy'  
because it would get stuff on it by the time she reached him. Her  
curious mother had, of course, asked why 'Mister Fluffy' wasn't with  
her.  
"Oh, he *never* comes into town," said Eva. "He always hides in the  
quarry. It's safe up there where the big black man can't get him and  
give him more ouches."  
This had been a little too much continuity for Eva's mother, who had  
spoken to other mothers and noticed an amazing coherence to the story of  
the little blue imaginary man. It was a rare thing for a group of  
children to adopt *one* imaginary friend, let alone have almost  
*exactly* the same story about him.  
Naturally, she asked to meet 'Mister Fluffy' - or as he was known to  
the rest of the kids, 'Kurt'.  
She caught him out in the open, trying to wash his double-cursed  
blanket in the stream.  
Her reaction had been perfectly natural.  
"Demon!"  
Kurt panicked.  
...and the little switch inside his head went off again.  
{BAMF!}  
He was elsewhere, also on the outskirts of town, and not so badly  
effected as the last time. He managed to cling grimly to consciousness  
and hid in the shadows as a frightened mother raised the alarm.  
  
It had been a bad day, and it wasn't promising to get any better. The  
janitor had shrugged and made a "Mneh" sound at Kurt's explanation, then  
gave him a packet of rat poison and a torch.  
"Rats in the basement," the janitor said.  
"Vas?"  
"There are rats," said the janitor, "in the basement."  
"And?"  
The janitor sighed. "You find the rats with the torch. Then you put the  
poison down near the holes. You got an hour, then come back to me. Get  
it?"  
"Got it."  
"Good."  
Ten minutes into the afforementioned excercise, his low-battery alarm  
went off on his holographic enducer. Just another element in a *perfect*  
day. Not. He looked around and shrugged. What the hell. Who was going to  
see him down here?  
  
Kylie stared. So did Kenny. The same big boy that had seen them had  
just magicked himself into someone like *them*. And it was really real.  
They could see because he held the torch with his tail while both his  
hands struggled with opening the box he'd bought down with him.  
He was someone like them. And they were sitting there like dead fish.  
"Here rat," he said, using the English they'd heard so much today.  
Maybe he wasn't *all* like them. Then again, he *was* an outside person,  
and *they* all spoke English. "Come here and eat the lovely poison.  
Nummy num nums..." He laughed briefly. "Ja. Right."  
They watched him stalk aimlessly through the gloom of their safe  
place, aiming the torch's beam at all sorts of things. Most of the  
things he looked at, Kylie noticed, were things that they'd used during  
the day.  
She nearly screamed out loud when the light found the food they'd been  
warming near the big hot things. Did he know they were there?  
"Some rats," said the big boy like them. He stalked back to the bouncy  
beds, and traced a little footprint. "Not rats, then. Not unless they're  
more mutant that *I* am..." Then he started looking.  
Kenny was halfway out of their hiding hole. Kylie grabbed his tail and  
hauled him back. "[No,]" she whispered. "[Not yet.]"  
"[What?]" asked Kenny. "[Why?]"  
"[You remember Aunty Em. She said *they* had to find *us*.]"  
Kenny sat with a pout. "[Bossy britches.]"  
  
There it was again. The same little voices. Children's voices. There  
were little kids hiding in here, and afraid to show themselves. They'd  
already seen his true form, and they hadn't screamed and run, which  
meant they were young enough not to know fear.  
He was good with kids that age. They treated him like someone who was  
unusual, as opposed to something that was different.  
"Kluges kinder," he murmured. "Where are you hiding, eh?" He dropped  
to all fours so he could have a better kid's perspective, using his tail  
to aim the light. Now, if he was four or less, where would he hide?  
The whispering continued. Sounded almost like the timeless argument of  
youth, save that he couldn't understand a word of it.  
"[Am not.]"  
"[Are too.]"  
Kurt had to grin. They were hiding in the old gym mats. He was almost  
on them. Judging by the repetition, they were well into the argument. He  
used it to his advantage, zeroing in on them until he found one. Or more  
precisely, the denim leg of their pants.  
"Ha!" He crowed. "Found you!"  
"[He's found us. Are you happy *now*?]" said one.  
"[It'll do. We can go out now.]"  
They emerged into the light, squinting their slightly luminous eyes.  
"Gott in himmel..."  
Eyes almost exactly like his. The boy's were a clear, saphire blue,  
while the girl's were more amber, but they were his eyes. And his face.  
And his fur...  
They reached out to touch each other simultaneously.   
Now that he was getting over the initial shock, he could see  
dissimilarities, but they were small compared to the likenesses. The  
little girl, for example, had hair that tumbled into thick waves of  
indigo, and her tail-tip was more heart-shaped than anything else. The  
boy, on the other hand, had straight hair in a traditional bowl cut and  
would have looked quite Spock-ish, were it not for the fact that his  
ears had a second, smaller set of points below the main ones.  
And they were absolutely adorable. They didn't deserve to be living in  
a cellar. He had to take them away from here, lest they be discovered  
and...  
The 'and' always trailed off. Kurt personally doubted that Americans  
were the pitchforks-and-flaming-torches type, but then again, they  
*were* heavily into chrome labs, needles and vivisections. He couldn't  
take a chance.  
He gathered the kids up in each arm, and 'ported to his room in the  
mansion, where he put them down again.  
"Stay," he said. "You understand? Stay right here."  
Then he 'ported back to where he started. Just in the nick of time, he  
activated the holographic inducer and emerged from under the mats.  
The janitor was clomping down the stairs. "Your hour's past up, kiddo.  
If I find you sleepin' on the job..."  
"Nein, herr janitor. Just looking for rats under here. I couldn't find  
one, but I put down some poison," _read, 'spilled some in my panic'..._  
"just in case."  
"Mneh," the janitor took back his box and his torch. "Go home."  
"Jawohl." He all but raced for freedom - or at least isolation -  
before 'porting back home.  
The kids, much to his surprise, had stayed put. He breathed a sigh of  
relief and fell into a sitting position on the floor.  
  
"[He blew up,]" said Kenny. "[*Now* what?]"  
*Brothers*... Kylie sighed. "[He didn't blow up, silly. He went away.  
Just like he took us here from the hiding place.]"  
"[You sure?]"  
"[*We* didn't blow up. He'll be back.]"  
{BAMF!}  
"[*See*?]"  
  
"Can't talk, got a lot of homework," Kurt announced as he proceeded to  
raid the fridge.  
"Here's more from math," announced Kitty, holding up the copied sheet.  
"Try not to fall asleep during it, okay?"  
By that time, of course, both arms, his mouth and tail were loaded  
down with goodies.  
"Ach... *Kitty*..." he said around a packet of something. Then, with  
great care and precision, grabbed the page with his right foot.  
"Got a match?" said Evan.  
"Rrrr." {BAMF!}  
Rogue entered the room and searched the fridge for anything snack-  
worthy. "I see the blue fuzzy *stomach* has struck again," she growled.  
"Does he eat everything in his path or *what*?"  
"Odd," said Evan.  
"What is?" Kitty barely loked up from her math.  
"I'm *in* most of Kurt's classes. We hardly got any homework."  
"Maybe he got some stuff in detention. Or *for* detention," said Jean.  
She, too, attempted to raid the fridge. "Well, nothing's wrong with his  
*appetite*..."  
"Anything in there for me?" asked Scott.  
"Only if you like half a jar of elderly mayonnaise, some suspicious  
cheese, and a squishy tomato with white mould growing on it."  
"Ew. Next time Kurt raids the fridge, I say we tie him down until we  
get *our* share."  
"I second the motion."  
"Amen."  
  
"Here. I thought you might be hungry for some *real* food."  
The kids fell on it as if starving. In that aspect, they were easily  
*exactly* like him. Fully capable of consuming their own body weight in  
fat, carbohydrates, grease, sugar and chocolate. There was lots of  
protein in there, too. Somewhere.  
Kurt lay on the floor, going through what there was of his homework -  
including math - where the kids could see him. He'd removed his watch  
and put it on the recharger within the first few instants of his second  
return. A spare watch waited on his dresser in reserve - just in case of  
fritzes and other emergencies. He'd need that to do some shopping for  
the kids.  
For now, they were happy to eat and chat amongst themselves, but what  
happened when they got bored? And they'd need clean clothes. Their  
coveralls, though hardy, were a mess at the moment.  
His homework finished with, he pondered his junior charges. There were  
only a few words in their speech that he could understand, or nearly  
understand. Yet taken as a whole, they weren't speaking any language  
Kurt knew.  
"Do you know your names?" he asked aloud. "Do you know who you are?"  
They stared at him.  
"Ja. I know. You don't understand a word." He sighed. "I'm Kurt." He  
pointed to himself. "Kurt."  
Fortunately for him and the whole me-Tarzan-you-Jane thing, the little  
girl caught on instantly. "Kylie," she said, pointing to herself. Then  
to the boy, "Kenny."  
"Kylie and Kenny," Kurt grinned. "Pleased to meet you, I'm sure."  
They jumped on him and proceeded to hug the stuffing out of him.  
"Ach! All right. You're happy to see me too, ja? Oof... I *do* need to  
breathe, you know. That's better." He took a few pulls of hug-free  
oxygen. "Do you know any English at all? I heard you say a few words of  
German..."  
Again, Kylie took the lead. "English," she said, then scoured her  
memory. "The ball is round. I want my breakfast please. Am I safe here.  
We are not dangerous. I want... my... free of... Base."  
"I see," said Kurt. "Wunderbar... Do you know 'stay' or 'hide'?"  
Kenny grinned. "Hide," he announced, and zoomed under the bed. "Stay,"  
he said, and Kurt could see him being very, very still. "Out now," and  
he was once more out in the open.  
Kylie was staring at him with an open mouth.  
Kurt applauded them. "*Very* good. Both of you." This was just what he  
needed. Something was going his way for a change. "Now *hide*, and  
*stay* until I come back, ja?"  
Both hid and stayed there, much to Kurt's relief. He put on the spare  
watch, activated the image inducer - since there was no telling if there  
were strangers present - and left in search of the Professor.  
  
The Professor was in the library, with the man in black. Kurt knew  
that voice from so long ago, even though he wasn't humming something  
repetatively maudlin.  
Kurt ducked into an alcove and listened over the rapid beating of his  
heart.  
"Of course I'm concerned for the wellbeing of your Doctor Bain," said  
the professor, "but I haven't even met her, yet. But - why such an alarm  
if she's only been missing for a handful of hours?"  
"She took two lab specimens with her, Professor," said the man in  
black. "Without authorisation or proper sterilisation procedures. These  
are dangerous animals if they fall into the wrong hands."  
"Are they infectious?"  
"Thankfully, no, but it's best to stay out of contact with them. If  
you see them, call me and I'll capture or dispose of them as necessary."  
"I see. And what sort of animals are they?"  
"Genetically modified apes, sir."  
Kurt's eyes widened. The 'funny monkey' story all over again...  
The man in black continued, "They're twins, a male and a female. Both  
are - well - blue. For identification purposes, they have hospital tags  
on their wrists. The serial numbers are --"  
Kurt had seen their wrist bracelets, and he knew the number. K-  
42471811. Followed by a B for boy or a G for girl.  
"-- K-42471811-B and K-42471811-G."  
_Gott. Nien..._ The terror of old memories combined with modern  
horrors hit him hard. It was all he could do to regulate his breathing  
and keep quiet. _Don't fall for it. Don't fall for it._  
"...eight one one G..." said the Professor as he jotted it down. "I  
already have your card, Mr Goldfinch, and I'll definitely call if I see  
them."  
"America thanks you, sir."  
He fell for it. Kurt was in such a fuge state as a result that he  
almost missed 'Mr Goldfinch' walk right past him. Apart from the  
leather, 'Goldfinch' was practically unchanged. He was wearing an  
ordinary brown suit, had a military buzz-cut, and didn't even notice  
that Kurt was there.  
The man who had tried to flat-out *kill* him three years ago just  
wandered past without noticing.  
  
"Ooohh... these are just so *darling*..."  
"Kitty, please, I only have so much money."  
"Oops." She grinned. She believed the lie that he'd told her, that  
three-year-old cousins were having a birthday soon, and he planned to  
send them their own little 'travel kits'.  
The lie stung, but not as deeply as it should have. The kids needed  
toys, books, and clothes, and buying all three at once would look  
suspicious otherwise.  
If Kitty knew, she'd tell the Professor without blinking. The  
Professor, in turn, would tell 'Goldfinch', and Kurt knew from personal  
experience what the man in black was good at. And it wasn't humming.  
"Okay. I'll check over what we got. Some I-can-read books each. A see-  
and-say to share. These darling little his and hers jammies... underwear  
each for each day of the week. Socks, ditto. They'd each need one of  
those, those, and that... How's the budget?"  
"Fragged," summarised Kurt. How could things so small wind up costing  
so *much*?  
"Aw, heck with it. I'll pay for the rest - and their little  
suitcases."  
"You're sure they're going to be *little* suitcases?"  
"Trust me. I am the mistress of packing."  
"I will have faith, then, frauline."  
"Oops! We totally forgot the shoes!"  
"Forget the shoes," said Kurt. "My cousins have prescription feet."  
"What?"  
"They have to get special shoes. On prescription."  
"*Oh*... I get it. To the check-out!"  
"Just keep talking, Kitty. I'll follow your voice."  
"Wise-ass elf..." she muttered. "I don't know *why* I'm helping you."  
"Because you can't resist my charming smile and the sweet, melodious  
sound of my voice?"  
"Shyeah... *right*..."  
  
Dinner was the usual affair, with Kurt having to be physically  
restrained from taking the entirety of the mashed potatoes before  
everyone got their fair share. Likewise the pasta, meat and gravy.  
"One of these days, Kurt, I swear, you're like, totally going to  
burst."  
"Ah, but what a way to go," he sighed. "Death by Lady Munroe's  
*fantastiche* cooking."  
"Flattery may get you somewhere," said Ororo.  
"Would it get me permission to finish this marvellous repast in my  
room? I've got a project that needs working on."  
Logan looked sideways at him. "You slip a cog in that fluffy head of  
yours, elf? What's all the eagerness to do schoolwork about?"  
"Fuzzy," corrected Kurt. "I'm *fuzzy*, not fluffy. And in answer to  
your question, I've decided that schoolwork is far better than rat  
hunting."  
"Oh...kay..." drawled Jean. "That was a little bit brief for me."  
"Yeah," said Evan. "Care to elucidate, man?"  
"You learned a new word," said Kurt. "Know what it means yet?"  
"*Elf*..." threatened Logan.  
"All right... The principal decided that detention wasn't enough for  
me, so she put me on the janitor's temporary staff list for the  
afternoon. The janitor had me looking for rats."  
"Find any?"  
"Only a couple," he shrugged. "I guess the stuff they serve in the  
cafeteria does them in. Can I go now?"  
"I suppose..."  
"Danke!" {BAMF!}  
"What the-?" Scott looked around his place. "My fork's gone  
missing..."  
  
"Now please welcome Mister Goldfinch from the Bayville Military  
Research Base."  
Kurt could have sworn he felt all his hair stand on end. Every last  
follicle. He'd never been happier that the holographic image inducer was  
a reality that was strapped firmly to his wrist. All the same, the  
memories were strong, painful, and threatening to make his skull burst.  
He couldn't hear what 'Goldfinch' was saying, but he knew it would be  
yet another variant of the 'funny monkey' story.  
All he could hear was his heartbeat, and his breath.  
His left arm, where 'Goldfinch' had cut it, spasmed in pain when the  
man looked his way. It took all of his effort to make his eyes look  
down. Of course, he was gripping the old scar so tight that it hurt  
anew. He could ignore that much, but he couldn't stand it if 'Goldfinch'  
had some amazing superpower or something.  
His eyes, of their own accord, went back to watching 'Goldfinch'.  
  
Kitty looked sideways at Kurt. He was totally freaking out, so scared  
that she could actually see him trembling, and clutching at his left arm  
with a grip like a vice.  
She didn't get it. Mr Goldfinch looked just like every other military  
burly goon type in peacetime. He had the sort of face that, should it  
*ever* wear a smile, would be instantly trustworthy. But Mr Goldfinch  
looked as though he'd never cracked a smile in his life.  
And Kurt was so scared of him that everything else in the world was  
blacked out.  
Mr Goldfinch finally finished talking about the coloured monkeys that  
were running loose, and left under the proviso that everyone collected a  
copy of the coloured monkey fact sheet, which included Goldfinch's  
number.  
Kitty prepared to relax back into learning mode as Goldfinch marched  
slowly back up the hallway.  
"Ti-ha-ha-haime... is on mah side..." crooned Goldfinch as he went.  
Kurt gasped, focussing anew on Goldfinch's location.  
Kitty leaned across, just brushing his arm as she whispered his name.  
The effect was explosive.  
He screamed in terror, batting her arm away and nearly knocking her  
on the head. In the same movement, he tried to get up and run away, only  
he was tangled up in the desk and chair and fell backwards.  
The whole class heard the noise when his head hit the desk next to  
him.  
Things were still falling down when Kitty reached him to check his  
head.  
There was blood, but not enough to be a cracked skull. And he'd  
managed to cut a leg in the fall. And he was barely conscious.  
"Great," Kitty moaned sarcastically. "You're totally bleeding. How  
many fingers am I holding up?" she held up three.  
"Only *got* two," he managed. "...unfair..."  
_Whoah. Less of that, thanks, fuzzy._  
The rest of the class was silent, staring open-mouthed at the  
spectacle.  
"Uh. I'd better take him straight home, Mr Jones. If that's okay."  
"That's - quite fine," Mr Jones was stunned, too. "I'll ring ahead so  
your guardian knows to expect you."  
One or two students had gathered up enough brains to help her get Kurt  
extracted from the tangle. Kitty focussed on being the only person he  
chose to lean on. One touch with those fuzzy hands of his, and it would  
be too much wierd happening at once and the whole Institute thing would  
be out on the four winds. It'd be so bad that the Professor would have  
to mind-wipe everyone on the whole planet.  
Kurt was a lot groggy, but at least he knew who she was and why he had  
to do things. His chin practically dropped to his chest on their way  
out, and for a frightening moment, she thought he was actually going to  
faint.  
Then she realised that he was trying to hide his face with his hair.  
  
"...and that was when he totally flipped out. It was like, *way*  
beyond terrified. You need new words for where he was."  
Kurt, for his part, had submitted to Ororo's ministrations on both  
grazes, taken some painkillers, and was now fast asleep on the couch.  
The Professor was still busy examining Kurt's left arm as if it were  
the greatest puzzle in the Universe. "Ah," he said at last. "There's an  
old scar, here. A cut... almost *surgical* in nature."  
Kitty made a face at the discovery. "A botched operation?"  
"I don't know," said the Professor, absently brushing Kurt's fur back  
into place before he put the boy's arm down. "I can't probe his mind to  
find out. Unconscious thought is nothing but a confusing jumble, and I  
get the distinct impression that Kurt would much rather keep things like  
this to himself."  
"But - it's just like, so totally nuts. He's never been like this  
before."  
"No," said the Professor with absolute certainty. "We have never  
*seen* him like this before."  
"That's *it*? You're going to let him stress out and hope he comes to  
you?" Kitty demanded. "What if he's too scared *already*? What if he  
thinks it's too much for us to help him with? What if he cracks?"  
"What if I probe his mind against his will, and he never trusts anyone  
ever again?" suggested Xavier.  
Kitty deflated from her righteous tirade. "Oh. I get it... Sorry  
Professor."  
"It's a delicate line to walk, and difficult to know when you've  
stepped over it. Or not done enough..." Xavier looked back into a bad  
memory for a moment. "All we can do is offer support."  
  
It was late. Very late. It was nearly the time of night when no  
creature should be stirring, but the mansion accounts had to be done.  
Charles blinked at the computer screen until it swam back into focus.  
Six growing teenagers plus three adults had somehow, this week, managed  
to eat for eleven.  
Then there were the strange occurrences of the missing articles.  
Nothing big, a little silverware here, an old blanket there, and they  
managed to resurface as if they'd never gone. And someone was using more  
laundry powder than they should.  
Kitty's personal phone line was over-budget again. Not much of a  
problem, since Kurt and Evan's phones were both forgotten in their  
rooms. Evan didn't call his family much, since they almost always called  
him; and as for Kurt... he wrote letters, reasoning that it was cheaper  
and he could say exactly what he wanted to.  
"Proffessor? Are you busy?"  
Much though he hated to use the phrase, 'speak of the devil' when it  
came to Kurt... "Just finances," Charles waved them off and faced the  
boy. "Something troubling you?"  
He was rubbing his left elbow again, ruffling and smoothing the fur  
over the scar on the underside of his forearm. That one action had  
become something of a nervous habit of late. "Why does Cerebro only work  
on *teenage* mutants?"  
Oh yes, the curse of What-if... "Unfortunately, Cerebro can only  
detect mutants by an *active* X-gene. There are some people who are  
latent mutants, and fully capable of living their lives normally."  
"And there are others... who are visible mutants from the day they're  
born."  
Charles correctly read that pause as, 'others like me'. "Yes. That is  
a sad truth, and I'm afraid that I can do little about it. That  
shouldn't be a reason to lose sleep, though. There are plenty of  
organisations, the world over, that seek out and help young - visible  
mutants."  
"...but are they the only ones?" Kurt muttered.  
"Pardon?"  
"Nothing," he amended quickly. "If - if you came across some little  
mutants... what then?"  
"That would depend on their situation, Kurt. I can't very well take a  
child away from loving parents, any more than I could leave a child  
hungry and homeless."  
"Ah. Danke." Ruffle and smooth, ruffle and smooth. Something was still  
bothering him. "That Goldfinch fellow... do you trust him?"  
How best to phrase it? "I prefer to give the benefit of the doubt in  
these situations, Kurt. So far, I haven't found a good reason to *not*  
trust Mr Goldfinch and his associates."  
Once again, the subtle terror that had personified Kurt's presence  
recently manifested. It radiated off him like waves.  
"Why?" Charles prompted. "Do you know him?"  
"I - met someone like him once," Kurt lied. "It was - unpleasant."  
Again, too little information to say or do anything useful. "And you  
can judge him by his looks?"  
Kurt tapped his chest, over his heart. "Bullseye, herr Professor; but  
this is not a case of 'pot kettle black'."  
"You're so sure?"  
"Ja. And looks like something I'll have to deal with on my own. It's  
my phobia. My nightmares. My messed-up head."  
_Mein kinder._  
Charles blinked. What the-? The thought was so loud that he couldn't  
help picking it up. The guilt of unwarrented thought-riffling  
overwhelmed the importance of the thought itself. "Just try not to do  
anything extreme, Kurt. And get some sleep."  
"Jawohl, herr Professor. I shall let you know before I start building  
any bombs, ja?"  
Ever the comedian. Charles grinned and waved him off. How *could*  
Kurt, who had witnessed the worst of superstitious humanity first-hand,  
still remain upbeat and optimistic about his abilities to fix things?  
There was something inside that hung onto the glimpses of sunshine in  
the darkness, and found a way out of the well of dispair.  
Charles envied him that hope, sometimes.  
To each their survival mechanism, he guessed. Whenever *he* wondered  
about humanity's overall state, he would attempt to solve whatever  
problem he perceived, sometimes working forever through mountains of  
psychological tomes. It was another puzzle to solve, that way, instead  
of a looming black cloud on the horizon.  
And speaking of looming clouds...  
Charles turned back to the accounting program. Hot water use was up,  
ditto shampoo and toiletries. Either someone was going on a clean binge  
- not surprising with Spring approaching - or there was a person or  
persons unknown hiding in the mansion.  
  
One advantage of bathing children was getting a peripheral bath for  
oneself in the process. Fortunately, the bathroom was relatively  
soundproofed, so others could rest if anyone decided to clean up in the  
middle of the night.  
Just as well, really.  
The twins acted as if they'd never seen a bathtub before. Maybe they  
hadn't, Kurt didn't know, but they caught on to the concept of 'bubble  
bath' within seconds. Likewise, splashing.  
"Ach!" Kurt whispered as yet another miniature wall of water hit him.  
"That's supposed to go over *you*, not all over the room..."  
Both Kylie and Kenny giggled as they wrestled for possession of the  
dipper.  
"All over!" said Kenny, demonstrating once he had a decent controlling  
grip.  
Kylie siezed the dipper once more and used it to douse her brother,  
who tried to blow bubbles with the falling water. Once the operation was  
completed, she handed Kurt the dipper with an air of self-satisfied  
confidence.  
Kurt doused her, too, though rather more gently than she'd washed  
Kenny.  
Judging by the sodden condition of all three fuzzy elves, the walls,  
floor, and the bathmat, it was time to get ready for bed. "Come on, out  
you get."  
They whined about it, but they obeyed, towelling themselves into  
ruffled little puff-balls and submitting to the hair-dryer before  
clambering into their PJ's.  
So far, they'd only picked up a few words and phrases of English, and  
were amazingly uncurious about what was on the other side of the door to  
any room he took them to. For that, at the very least, he was thankful.  
The last thing he wanted was to come home and discover that his beloved  
little devils had been taken back to the Base of theirs.  
It only took them half a week, and they'd squirmed their way into his  
heart.  
He tucked them in to his bed, then quickly 'ported back to the  
bathroom to clean up their mess. Having blue fur did tend to make one  
mindful of certain kinds of mess - obviously a lesson his kids hadn't  
quite learned yet.  
Midnight tolled before he finally crept into bed.  
  
"This is Jane Doe number seventeen," the doctor leading a small crowd  
of interns indicated the woman on the bed. "She was bought in from a  
two-car crash at seventh and main almost a week ago. Her autonomic  
functions are active, and she occasionally shows signs of REM-grade  
brain activity... as we see she's doing now."  
The interns craned their necks.  
"Didn't she come in with any ID?"  
"Unfortunately, no, Adams," the doctor took some readings from the  
monitors down on his clipboard. "In some cases, the patient's ID is  
stolen, lost, or, in the cases of suicide attempts, left behind for  
someone significant to find. Now, each of you can practice taking her  
pulse before we move along to the next ward."  
Adams held back as the rest herded out. "Sorry for the intrusion,  
Ma'am. We've been terribly rude. Just wake up and tell us we're a bunch  
of assholes next time." He kissed her hand, then brushed some loose hair  
away from her eyes. "Au revoir."  
Her hand spasmed in his, gripping at him like a vice. Then her eyes  
snapped open and she screamed a word he didn't know.  
"[KIDS!]"  
"Uh... *SI-IR*...!"  
  
"*You're* up late."  
"...wunk... mrfl..." said Kurt. His eyes were still half shut.  
"He's headed for the fridge!"  
"Gettim!"  
"Ack!"  
Kitty watched the resultant scrum and shook her head. "Guys, you're  
like, so totally immature."  
"We happen to be defending our snacking rights, Kitty," said Scott.  
"Yeah. The last time he raided the fridge, the dude got everything,"  
said Evan.  
"You're 'defending' an empty fridge, remember?" said Rogue.  
Scott and Evan looked at each other. "Oops."  
"Danke for the wake-up call, fellows," Kurt sarcasmed, finally  
wriggling free. He yawned, then continued his journey to the fridge,  
where he opened the door and stared into its white emptyness for some  
minutes. "We're out of milk."  
"*Duuuuuuuuuuh-UUURRRRRRRR*," Evan lowed like a cow. "Hail Kurt,  
master of the obvious."  
"We already ate your breakfast for you," said Rogue.  
"Ah, Danke," Kurt was till yawning and shuffling around in the vague  
search for foodstuffs.  
"You know, for a guy that eats everything that isn't nailed down,  
you're amazingly thin," Scott noted. "Bony, almost."  
"Mrf..." said Kurt.  
"Amazing."  
"It's like watching _Night of the Living Dead_."  
"Night of the Living Dead Smurfs," cracked Evan.  
"Ah! Cereal."  
"You are *not*," Jean pre-empted, "going to eat the whole packet."  
"Tha's nice," Kurt mumbled, shuffling back the way he'd come.  
Jean telekinetically lifted him off the floor. "Told you - hey... you  
*have* been losing weight."  
Kurt, his eyes closed once more, kept walking, floor or no.  
"Now *that's* spaced out," said Evan.  
"That's asleep," corrected Rogue.  
"I wonder what'd happen if you put him down in front of a wall..."  
"*Kitty*!"  
"Come on, you were totally thinking the exact same thing."  
Half of them got speculative looks.  
"Nah. It'd be too hard to explain to the Professor when he gets back  
with Logan and Ororo," said Jean.  
"Exactly," said Scott.  
"Plus we need to find out why the hyperactivity poster boy has  
suddenly become such a space case."  
"Uhmmm... Maybe - *not* such a good idea? Like, when he wakes up, he's  
totally like, Mister Vengeance."  
"Yeah," added Rogue. "Remember the soapy frogs? *I* remember the soapy  
frogs..."  
"And the noodle incident," said Evan.  
"And then there was the time he like, put honey in the--"  
"Okay, okay..." Jean rolled her eyes. "We'll bug him about it when he  
wakes up."  
"*If* he wakes up," said Scott, pointing at Kurt.  
He'd gone to sleep while they were talking, still clutching the cereal  
packet.  
"Primo snore-age."  
"Must've had another 'bad night'."  
"Like, does he ever have *good* ones?" Kitty poked him. "Yo, ee-elf...  
wakey wakey..."  
"Snrk? Vas? Why am I still in the kitchen?"  
"'Cause you're planning to eat a whole packet of Froot Loops," said  
Jean. "Like candy."  
"Nein, we're out of milk," he mumbled.  
"Gotta love I'm-not-awake-yet logic..." Kitty sighed. "So where were  
you going with the Froot Loops, fuzzy?"  
"Back to bed."  
"*WAY-yyyyy* out of it," said Evan, snickering. "I can see it now. He  
wakes up, and it's 'Vhat ze heck am I doink vis zis cereal?' I wanna be  
there with a camera, man."  
Kitty ignored him, focussing on Kurt. "What were you going to *do*  
with the Froot Loops?"  
"Share them," his voice was barely audible. "They're hungry."  
"Who's hungry?"  
"Secret. Gotta keep 'em safe..."  
"Wierd," Evan dismissed. "He's still dreaming. Let him go and forget  
about the stupid Froot Loops."  
"You're only saying that 'cause you hate them."  
Jean put him down gently. "It isn't worth it, Kitty. It's just one box  
of Froot Loops."  
"It's our *last* box of Froot Loops..."  
"For about - twenty minutes?"  
"Okay, so you totally have a point. I can wait for breakfast like  
everyone else. Except *Kurt*..."  
  
_Who'd be a parent?_ Kurt wondered for the umpteenth time while trying  
to figure out what the twins needed next. They were perpetually  
delighted to make a mess out of themselves, and periodically overjoyed  
enough to make him flinch at their noise.  
At least they were good at hiding when the occasion called for it.  
Which was, now that all of the X-Men were concerned about him, pretty  
much constantly.  
He should be glad that they were worried about him, but he was in  
eternal fear of the kids being discovered. The kids needed him.  
There *were* rewards. The hugs, the fascination in their little eyes  
when he showed them something new, the smiles on their faces whenever  
they saw him... the way they appreciated being spoiled rotten...  
_All right. I admit it. I must be a masochist or the world's biggest  
marshmallow..._ He chewed on his pen as he tried to figure out his  
budget. A budget meant for fun and games, turned towards supporting two  
small children - who had metabolisms almost exactly like his own.  
Working off of a third of his usual meals kept Kylie and Kenny happy,  
but the weight was visibly sloughing off his frame.  
Ororo thought he had anorexia or some other kind of eating disorder.  
Scott, in a slightly meaner mood because Kurt had snaffled his entire  
supply of Choco-Chex, had suggested worming him.  
_Now let's see... Supplies plus tougher clothes plus bubble bath plus  
a new book each equals -- two shiny American dollars a week for Kurt. I  
think we all saw that coming... But if I stick to the no-name brands  
and bargain bins, that comes to - *three* shiny American dollars. Not  
even enough for cafeteria food._  
His stomach was growling at him. _Quiet, you,_ he thought at it. _Just  
a few more hours until lunch._  
Maybe if he 'ported less, he wouldn't need to eat so much. He'd never  
tried to figure the calorie usage of the average 'port...  
Maybe if he came clean and *told* somebody, he wouldn't have to  
sacrifice so much. _Ja, like it's a big sacrifice to go a little hungry  
for these two._  
Kenny handed him something, for which Kurt was glad to exchange a  
tickling/wrestling session and a few hugs before he even looked at it.  
It was Kenny's 'hospital' bracelet. He'd been chewing on the thing for  
days, now, and it had finally come loose. Kylie, being neater-minded  
than her brother, was content to keep hers on.  
He stared at it, analysing the idea in his head in the very quiet way  
of someone who doesn't want the Universe to catch on, yet. There *was* a  
way to see how things would play out, without risking any lives  
whatsoever.  
All it would mean was a little lying.  
To Kitty.  
Nothing big. Nothing big at all.  
_Liar._  
  
"...and I thought that since you were so good with computers and  
everything, that you'd be able to decode that bar-thing under the serial  
number. The number looks right, but that Goldfinch fellow never  
mentioned a code strip."  
"This was in the food court at the mall?"  
"Ja, near that stand that sells all the stuffed potatoes."  
"Ew..." Kitty stopped him just in time - before he could wax lyrical  
about the things. "Trust you to be like, a total starch fiend. Okay.  
Let's see what a magnifying scan can do..."  
Kurt tied himself into an uncomfortable-looking knot in the chair next  
to her. His left foot, she couldn't help noticing, was gripping the  
upright rail on the right side of the chair. Either he was showing off,  
or so tense that he didn't realise that he was doing yoga.  
Kitty did her level best to ignore him. "Okay. This isn't a bar code,  
or a binary block. Looks denser than that... let's see what a thousand  
times magnification does to it."  
Once again, he had a firm grip on his left arm. Where the scar was.  
"Whoah..." Kitty breathed. It was text. Ultra-small, ultra-dense text;  
like the stuff they put on money, only smaller. Whoever was behind the  
coloured monkeys, they had themselves a printer with resolution above  
and beyond the call of duty. She could just make out the 'pages' of data  
in each apparent dot. "Okay. Two thousand times magnification."  
"...unglaublich..." Kurt whispered.  
"Like, yeah..." Kitty barely understood one word in three, but these  
coloured monkeys carried with them at least an encyclopaedia's worth of  
information on their wrists. "Totally."  
"How long..." Kurt's voice broke off in a croak. He cleared his throat  
and tried again. "How long would this take to convert into a normal text  
file?"  
"On *this* hunka junk PC? You've *got* to be kidding. I could convert  
like, maybe five pages a day if I defrag first, and *maybe* up to eight  
if I devote every computer second to doing it. There's two thousand  
pages here. Minimum."  
Kurt's lips were moving. "...two pages a day, don't want to impose...  
that's - three years? ...*Gott*..."  
Tension it was, then. "Relax, elf. I'm sure the professor will let us  
borrow some processor time on Cerebro or whatever. I'll just like, do  
the first five pages as a teaser so he gets what we're on about."  
"I don't want to impose," he said. "Whatever you can manage is fine.  
Really. I know how much time you spend working on your stuff."  
"Trust me. Most of it is just Solitair."  
  
Xavier was far more interested in the hospital tag than their  
discovery, and ran the plastic thing through his fingers as if pondering  
the mysteries of the Universe. Kurt, beside her on the couch, was  
halfway through tying himself in a knot again, and that left Kitty as  
the spokesperson.  
Which meant that she was going to babble.  
"Aren't you going to read what we printed? It took us all afternoon.  
See, the pages aren't in order on the tag? And they referenced the next  
page only with a set of co-ordinates? So we had to find a page that  
wasn't referenced by any other page? Only the co-ordinates pointed to  
the *top* of the page? And the reference was at the bottom? So we like,  
came up with this program that divided the scanned area into pages? And  
then we could look at the reference pretty quick after that... Once we  
had, like, the first page, it was nearly easy."  
Kurt made a small noise, like someone trying not to scream, except it  
was at whisper volume.  
He was looking at the same thing the Professor was - the news.  
Goldfinch was telling the entirety of Bayville about the coloured  
monkeys, and how potentially dangerous they were to the public.  
"Professor?"  
"Hm? Oh. Yes. Feel free to borrow some idle time on Cerebro for your  
project. I look forward to seeing the results. Kurt, if you could stay  
behind for a quiet word?"  
  
"Do you know your name?"  
"My kids. Where are my kids? Are they okay?"  
"Do you know your name?"  
Jane Doe Seventeen sighed. "Emily Bain. Doctor Emily Bain."  
"Is there anyone we can notify about your whereabouts?"  
"There's plenty of people you can *notify*," she said, "but I'd rather  
live, thankyou. Now *please*; where are the twins?"  
Adams patted her hand. "Emily, you were the only one who came to us  
from the crash site. You were the only one that the paramedics found.  
Your children either left the scene, were taken away by a samaritain  
before the ambulance arrived, or were abducted by the persons who were  
driving the other car."  
"They would have run," Emily said with concrete certainty. "They'd  
have run for somewhere safe. I have to find them. I have to find them  
*now*..."  
"It's going to be okay, Emily," Adams soothed. "We're calling the  
police, and they're going to ask you about your kids, and they'll find  
them and bring them here. Okay? You just need to get your rest and  
answer the Doctor's questions."  
"Thank you Adams," the Doctor drawled sarcastically. "Now. Miz Bain;  
did you have in your posession any medical or identification cards or  
papers prior to the accident?"  
  
As the King was wont to say in _The King and I_, 'is a puzzlement'.  
Kurt had been acting unusually ever since the rat-hunting incident, and  
was regressing into his former, covert and guarded self. He was  
terrified of *something* that was happening in Bayville, and the phrase  
'funny monkey' was the key to it.  
Goldfinch, or someone almost exactly like him, was involved; along  
with - for some bizarre reason - the song _Time is on My Side_.  
Kurt was eating more food than normal, and still loosing weight.  
_Correction,_ Charles amended. _He's *taking* more food. Whether he's  
eating it all remains up to debate._  
"Our latest information release also states that the twin monkeys may  
answer to the names 'Kenny' and 'Kylie'," burbled the news announcer.  
"Should you or any member of your family encounter these creatures, our  
toll-free contact number is--"  
Charles turned the TV off, and watched as Kurt shook himself back into  
reality. His mind was nothing more than a tangle of horrors, with a tiny  
proportion allotted to coping with life as it happened. Small wonder,  
then, that he was 'spacing out' so frequently.  
Then there was the strange incident of the bathtub in the night-  
time...  
Charles ran the hospital tag through his fingers again. On such little  
things hinged the fates of many. "Kurt? Are you all right?"  
"Ja, herr Professor... just a little - you know - off frequency?"  
_Off frequency... I must remember that one. Most apt for the feeling  
that reality is being overwhelmed by an under-signal that was just  
getting more and more annoying._ "I think I know exactly what you mean.  
I've had days like that myself."  
"Just days?"  
"Days were more than enough for *me*," Charles joked. Time to give the  
poor lad a steam valve before he exploded. "This didn't come off a  
monkey, did it?"  
Kurt waved at the TV. "He was just on there saying that they were  
monkeys. He told the school they were monkeys. He told *you* they were  
monkeys. Why shouldn't they be monkeys? He says he's worked with them,  
he aught to know."  
That, Charles noted, was panic-babble. "Perhaps," he allowed. "And  
perhaps Mr Goldfinch was lying. Perhaps there's more to this than either  
of us knows."  
"Ach, come on Professor... everyone *knows* you know *everything*."  
Ah, the confidence and faith of youth. Charles had to laugh. "Not as  
much of everything as I'd like to. For example, it took me three years  
to track *you* down after your X-gene manifested."  
"Ja, but I travelled a lot. And sometimes *fast*. Nothing like a puff  
of brimstone from a blue devil to *really* tick people off, nein?"  
"Quite," Charles allowed. He didn't like thinking about those three  
years where Kurt had been left, essentially, to his own devices. The  
What-if games tended to proliferate beyond belief. "The point is that  
there's always more to any story. And I suspect that there's a great  
*deal* more to this one."  
Once again, his hand covered his old scar, and his breath was  
straining to remain normal. "Ja... I knew you knew everything... but  
what are you going to *do* about it?"  
Charles sighed. Maybe he'd let things go a little too long. "I rather  
think the question is what *we* are going to do about it."  
"Goldfinch needs to think they've gone," said Kurt.  
"He does?" This definately piqued his curiosity. "Why?"  
"Because three years ago, he tried to kill me. I was lucky to get away  
with this scar."  
  
Flashback...  
From the rooftops of Erlinstad, Kurt could see just about everything.  
The new moon, red in the sky, was like a spotlight to his eyes. It had  
always been that way. His parents did always say that he could find his  
way from the shine on the back of a frog in the bottom of a well in the  
middle of an overcast night.  
Below, the entire village was out, torches burning up the hillsides  
like amber klieg lights. Some had even gone up the more mountainous  
areas and now resembled fireflies in the forest.  
There was a truck approaching on the far side. Kurt leaped from  
rooftop to rooftop, craning his neck to see what sort of truck it was.  
The distant headlights masked all but it's blocky shape, so far. It  
could be the long-awaited circus van. It could be the man in black, back  
to skin him alive, and with the township's blessing.  
_They'd probably give him a giant key for it, too..._  
No time for paranoia. He had to find out for sure.  
The only rooftop leading that way, however, was the church's, and an  
entire story above his current position. Kurt crouched on his current  
roof, considering the problem. Even with his incredible grip, he  
couldn't find much purchase on those slick, moss-covered stones.  
He knew there was another way, but the two previous times had been  
triggered by blind panic. There was no way to tell if the results would  
be completely random every time.  
Well... it *was* a house of God...  
_Let it work,_ he prayed, and envisioned the tiles of the high chapel.  
He could 'see' where they were in relation to him. He thought about his  
*need* to get there and -  
{BAMF!}  
Kurt opened an eye. It worked! He could make this thing do what he  
*wanted* it to! And each time, it was a little easier. This time, he was  
only winded and sweaty and hungry enough to eat a horse. He was still  
wide awake.  
Careful of the old tiles on God's house, Kurt trotted ever closer to  
the other side of the town. The van was definitely *squarer* than the  
man in black's van. There were hints of the poles used to fly flags on  
each corner.  
_Bless the man that put up that road light..._ Yes! The van was  
brightly-coloured and driven by people that looked *amazingly* like his  
parents. Kurt worked out where they were going and picked a spot within  
their line-of-sight, but near a handy hiding place if he was wrong.  
Below, the man in black spotted him.  
"There it is!"  
"Devil!"  
"Demon!"  
The man in black raised a weapon.  
_Not this time, 'friend'. I've worked it out._ He concentrated on his  
destination.  
{BAMF!}  
Okay. A little disorientation and dizzyness, and the blinding glare of  
the headlights. And the squeal of the brakes.  
"KURT! Where did you come out of?" Mother's voice. The sweet welcome  
note of concern, worry and relief all rolled into one.  
"It was a surprise to me, too," he said, already clambering into the  
passenger seat, between his mother and father. "Tell you the whole  
story. Later. I promise."  
"You must be freezing, out on a night like this. Fur or not. I have  
your coat and a thermos of soup; and these heat packs and--"  
"*Mother*..." Kurt grinned, despite the embarressment factor. "Can we  
at least go home first?"  
"Anything," said Father, "for a little peace of mind."  
  
"When I found out more about my teleporting," Kurt concluded, "I  
couldn't help thinking about that last night in Erlinstad. I could have  
been unable to 'port that far, I could have only had a limited amount of  
times I could do it... Anything could have gone wrong."  
"But it didn't," said Charles. "That's the important part."  
"*I* was the 'funny monkey' that Goldfinch was looking for, back then;  
and I had no-one on my side."  
"It's certainly *odd* that there might be two more individuals like  
yourself... but after hearing what you had to say - I can't trust Mr  
Goldfinch's word alone."  
Half a mountain's worth of tension eased out of him in one breath.  
Charles was personally curious as to what would help with the *other*  
half. Probably little short of the last of Goldfinch and his 'funny  
monkey' hunt. Well, he could help with that. He held up the hospital  
tag. "Shall we play this card out and see what happens?"  
  
There were flashing lights everywhere, or at least that was how it  
seemed to someone looking at the Bayville Mall.  
The Professor's voice was clear in his right ear. "What's happening  
down there?"  
"They've called in everything short of the national guard," Kurt  
whispered into his mouthpiece. His vantage point in the trees across the  
road was ideal. Concealed enough to go unnoticed, and near enough to see  
everything that was going on. "Looks like they're fighting over the  
rights to put up yellow tape." He gasped an oath, and clung a little  
closer to his perch. "Schiss... it's Goldfinch..." In times of high  
stress like this, it was easy to forget that the rest of the world did  
*not* possess his amazing night-sight.  
Goldfinch looked his way, but only in passing, whilst fumbling for an  
identity card. Since he was Kurt's personal bogeyman, it was *truly*  
hard to forget that he was merely human. Kurt's heart-rate only went  
down when Goldfinch turned back to the guard-Goons and flashed his  
wallet.  
The guard-Goons came to heel instantly, as did the other uniformed  
wonders.  
"Professor. They're carrying guns. There's no sign of tranquilliser  
darts. They want to *kill* those kids."  
"Kids?" quoted the Professor. "How do *you* know they're--" a sigh.  
"You're still not telling me everything."  
"Sorry, Professor... You'll get a full confession when I get back,  
ja?" Commotion across the road caught his attention again. "Nasty.  
They're pumping some kind of gas into the air vents. White-grey stuff.  
The people handling it are wearing toxin-suits."  
"I think we've both seen enough."  
"Ja. I'm out of here before they start blowing up the landscape."  
{BAMF!}  
  
"They're only three years old, and they don't speak much English,"  
Emily believed in getting her credentials out in the open to begin with.  
"They don't know how different they are, yet, so I told them that if  
anything bad happened, they were to run and hide. They'll only trust the  
police, firemen and paramedics -- and me."  
"Oh, this is just *swell*," sarcasmed the senior officer as he took  
notes. "We gotta play hide-and-seek, now."  
The rookie on his side asked the next relevant question. "Just *how*  
different are these kids?"  
"Well. They're - blue."  
"Synodotic?"  
"Cerulean."  
The rookie whistled. "That's *different*, sarge."  
"Cerulean blue. Anything else?"  
"Tridactyl hands..."  
"You what?"  
"They only have two fingers and a thumb per hand."  
"Three... fingers... yeah?"  
"They have tails." It was usually the second thing any intern at the  
Base noticed about them. The first was their hue.  
"Lady, what kind of kids *are* they?"  
"They're *my* kids, officer, and I need to know that they're *safe*,"  
she told them. "The last thing I want to hear is how they were shot  
while running towards what they *thought* was safety."  
"Okay, lady. *Okay*... Jeez..."  
Emily settled back into their hospital bed. Her head hurt.  
"I told you Thompson," said the sarge as he left, "wait long enough in  
this job and you'll see one of *everything*."  
  
There was someone *with* Papa Kurt. Kylie froze mid-lunge and held an  
urgent hand over her brother's chest.  
"[Wait,]" she hissed. "[Something's not right.]"  
She could see, even as she crept softly backwards towards the wall,  
that Papa Kurt was with someone on wheels. They were talking - more  
English - but this time at least, she could understand half of what they  
were saying.  
"You'll have to be *really* quiet," Papa Kurt was saying to the  
wheeled someone. "They're very jumpy about people who don't look like  
them. I don't think they trust them. No sudden moves and all that."  
"I fully understand, Kurt," said the wheeled man. He had laughter in  
his voice. "I won't do anything to frighten your little friends."  
"It's okay, mein lieblings, the Professor is a friend. You can come  
out now. It's safe."  
Kylie stayed rooted to the spot. The wheeled man didn't *look* like a  
policeman or anything like that. Kenny followed her lead.  
Papa Kurt peered under the bed at them and smiled. "Aw, come on. It's  
safe. The Professor's a good man. Come on. You can hold my hand. It's  
*safe*."  
Kylie shot forward into Papa Kurt's arms and clung to him like a  
limpet. Kenny, somewhat slower off the mark, had to settle for the  
nearest leg.  
"What's *this*?" said Papa Kurt. "He's not *that* scary. Come on...  
you can at least say 'hello' to him, ja? He doesn't bite."  
Kylie risked opening an eye. This 'Professor' person hadn't budged  
from his place. He was just sitting there and watching them. She opened  
her other eye so she could stare.  
The Professor-man didn't have a hair on his head. Not even the sharp-  
fuzz some men got on their chins.  
"Hello," said the Professor in a soft voice. "You must be Kylie."  
Slowly, finger by finger, she let go of Papa Kurt and stood on her  
own. She still kept her legs tensed so she could run away at the  
slightest hint of trouble.  
"Ach... Kenny... How can I give you a hug if you won't let go of my  
leg?"  
Behind her, Kenny whimpered a little, but the Professor-man was more  
interesting than her brother, right now. Kylie took a tentative step  
forward, watching every move that the Professor-man didn't take.  
For a grownup, he was awful strange. For a start, he wasn't taking  
notes at everything she or Kenny did. He reminded her of Aunty Em  
because of it, and the way he looked at her.  
He looked at her like people looked at people, not how people looked  
at things.  
She poked his leg, and retreated a step.  
The Professor-man still smiled at her.  
"See, Kenny?" Papa Kurt was whispering. "*Kylie* isn't afraid."  
Kylie, proving his words true, clambered up into the Professor-man's  
lap and examined his scalp.  
The Professor-man only laughed, and brushed her hair with his hand like  
Papa Kurt did.  
At that point, Kenny leaped from Papa Kurt's arms and joined Kylie.  
"[Feels funny,]" Kenny noted. "[Sort of like plastic.]"  
"[But it's *alive* plastic,]" argued Kylie. "[It can't be *real*  
plastic.]"  
"[I only said what it was *like*...]"  
Kylie gave up on his head and pulled back a sleeve. "[Look! He *does*  
have fur!]"  
  
Charles had to laugh. "They get over fear pretty quickly, don't they?"  
"Nein," said Kurt. "You and the others have been in here dozens of  
times, and each time it was safe to come out, they were terrified."  
"Hey..." Charles extracted the little girl from his shirt. "That's  
being a little *too* friendly, my lass."  
"Sorry Professor. They're worse than raccoons for getting into  
things."  
"Really?"  
"I guess. I've only heard about the creatures from Kitty. *Oops*...  
Professor, we left her with a very bad impression and a lot of work."  
"Oh dear."  
  
"...muttermuttermumble 'project'... grumblegrowlgrizzle like Cerebro  
is ever going to be used for a 'project'... I'll give *him* a 'project' -  
right up the--"  
"Ahem."  
Kitty counted to ten. "If this is about you needing more processing  
time or whatever, I have it covered. Not that you'd like, ever listen to  
*how*..."  
"I'm *extremely* sorry about how I acted, Kitty. I didn't mean to give  
you the wrong impression. I was - distracted."  
"Ja, Kitty. He had other things on his mind."  
"Oh yeah?" she rounded on them. "And what could *possibly* be so  
interes..." Kitty saw the two little figures in the Professor's lap.  
"...ting..." Her jaw was hanging open. "Oh. My. *God*."  
Almost unnoticed, fading into the background as he did so often, Kurt  
tensed into a classic fight-or-flight stance.  
"They're so *cu-uuute*..." Kitty squealed. "Relatives of yours,  
fuzzy?"  
Kurt relaxed and grinned. "Ja. Maybe. I saw on one of those microprint  
pages, the word 'Erlinstad'. I was - there once."  
Kitty, meanwhile, had crouched so she could look them in the eyes.  
"Hey there, cuties. My name's Kitty. Don'cha wanna say hello?"  
"[Is she safe?]" the little boy said something in a language Kitty  
couldn't understand.  
The girl was staring at her. "[She must be safe. You remember; when  
Papa Kurt was magicked pink, he played with her and stuff.]"  
The little boy screwed up his face. "[He *likes* her, likes her? With  
*kissing*? Yuck!]"  
Kitty looked at Kurt. "Uhm. Fuzzy? Talking English they're not."  
"I know," said Kurt. "I can't understand what they're saying either."  
The little girl, meanwhile, had left the Professor's lap and was  
successfully climbing Kitty's leg.  
Kitty scooped her up into her arms. "Aww, loo-ook. You're wearing the  
same kinda outfit I got for Kurt's --" Something went 'click' inside her  
head, and she glared at the elf. "These *are* those 'cousins' you  
mentioned, aren't they?"  
"Don't they look darling?" Kurt managed a sick grin, but didn't make  
it all the way to a nervous laugh.  
"Katherine," the Professor said. "Kurt had to do quite a number of  
things he felt were necessary, in order to *protect* these children.  
Admittedly, some of his ideas were wrong," he, too, glared at  
Nightcrawler, who cringed even further. "But you have to admit that his  
heart *was* in the right place."  
"You could have *told* us, you know."  
"Really? With each of you believing Goldfinch's funny monkey story?"  
Kitty remembered the day that just about each of them had fantasised  
about what they were going to do with the reward money if they found the  
missing apes. There were very few quiet people in that conversation. One  
of them had been Kurt. The other had been - Mr Logan...  
The mental image of *Logan* on the floor with these hyperactive blue  
rugrats overwhelmed her for an instant before it imploded from its own  
improbability. No, he *couldn't* have...  
"Did herr Logan - know?" obviously, Kurt had had a similar idea -  
though probably with different pictures.  
"Not - exactly," the Professor allowed. "He heard the 'monkey story'  
from me and instantly said that something 'didn't smell right'."  
"Yes," Kurt breathed. "I *knew* someone else around here was a  
suspicious bastard. Er. I mean -- uh..."  
The Professor decided to let him off the hook. "It's all right. I'll  
forgive your choice of words - this time." He resumed the thread of his  
tale. "Logan *was* suspicious, and he's been investigating things since  
your - 'rat hunting' adventure."  
"I *was* hunting rats," Kurt defended. "...for about half an hour."  
"Yes," said the Professor. "He found the twins' tracks about a day  
after you must have bought them here. He told me, and I quote, 'if  
they're monkeys, then I'm a damned dirty ape.' Of course, I had to give  
both sides of the argument the benefit of the doubt until I encountered  
positive proof, either way."  
Kurt winced.  
"Speaking of proof," Kitty picked up the sheaf of printed pages so  
far. "Half of this stuff goes *way* over my head, but it's like, all  
about DNA and cloning and stuff?"  
"May I?"  
"Professor, we were doing this so we could convince you something  
like, totally funky was going on. You're like, totally welcome. Like,  
make notes in the margins. Whatever."  
The Professor took the pages, and dropped immediately into Intense  
Concentration Mode, which gave Kitty all the excuse she needed to book.  
She snagged Kurt's arm and took him with her.  
Correction, Kitty noted as she looked behind her to see what was  
galloping after, Kurt and his kids. "We like, *totally* need to talk,  
fuzzy."  
"Would the kitchen do? I'm starved."  
"Sure! I'll cook!"  
  
Kitty's cooking was still largely a visual experience, in that Kurt  
loved watching her cook. Tasting the results of her gastronomic  
adventures, on the other hand, was slightly less than rewarding.  
This particular excercise involved a great deal of bending over in  
search of impliments of construction. This was a great opportunity to  
visit DayDreamLand for minutes on end. He kept trying to picture what  
she'd be like when she was grown up, and past the vegetarian-so-she-  
could-save-the-whales thing. He could spend hours on those fictitious,  
yet luscious curves.  
Not that she had bad curves right now, of course. It was just that she  
was a little on the thin side.  
"Hmmmm..." he rumbled, low in the back of his throat, then realised  
Kitty had been talking. "Hm?"  
"I *said*, you're not going to complain about *this* recipe,  
Nightcrawler. I like, got it off the internet with you in mind. It  
totally can't fail."  
Which meant that he had to like it. Whether he liked it or not. That  
was, when he considered it, a very small price to pay for admission into  
DayDreamLand.  
"There's some primo wierd stuff on Kenny's wrist tag," Kitty said as  
she began to mix ingredients while foot-nudging the twins out of the pot  
cupboards. "There's like, this whole chapter dedicated to 'generational'  
mutants? Like, I'm a first-generation mutant, 'cuz my parents are norms,  
and you're a second-generation mutant, 'cuz - youknow..."  
"Ja, and I'm sort of dealing with it. Nearly."  
"They never like, ever refer to you as a person? It's like, 'the  
Erlinstad sample' this, and 'the Erlinstad sample' that. I got *so*  
totally creeped out by their attitude."  
"I almost expected it," Kurt told her. "Goldfinch - if that *is* his  
real name - treated me like an animal when he *got* that sample in the  
first place."  
"He was totally planning to *kill* you, Kurt! How'd you get loose?"  
"I 'ported for the first time." Kurt shrugged. "And then afterwards, I  
just got lucky."  
"Brrr..." her attention diverted away when she noticed one of the  
twins had got a hold of the mix-master. "Hey! Like, paws off! That's  
*dangerous*."  
Kurt teleported around, gathering kids and righting wreckage, then sat  
them at the table. "You'll have to excuse them, Kitty. They're used to  
their dinner arriving by 'Bamf express'." Reluctantly, Kurt tore his  
mind away from Kitty's curves, ficticious or not, and engaged the twins  
in a little hand-clapping game.  
"Okay. Where was I? Okay. Thing is, there's 'pure' seconds and 'half'  
seconds. The half ones only get mutations from a mutant parent, and  
like, rarely have a new gift on their own? The pure ones get mutations  
from *both* sides, and develop their own power like, most of the time."  
"Let me guess. I'm a 'pure' second-generation mutant?"  
"Worse. Someone tried to fool with your DNA when you were a kid. Like,  
they didn't do anything to *you*, but they did enough to like, copy  
protect your genes?" Something went into the deep fryer and the air  
filled with the delicate scent of Kurt's favourite food group -  
battered.  
He was so busy inhaling the aroma that he almost didn't hear her.  
"Someone messed with my genes?"  
"Someone *tried* to mess with your genes. It's not even teratogenic  
stuff. Like, you're okay, and your kids will be proper third-generation  
mutants, no snags. But if someone tries to clone you, they get like, all  
these bizarre variants."  
"And that means that these kids are - mine?" _I'm a Father at  
thirteen, and I didn't even know it..._  
"It's like, *totally* worse than that." Kitty bit her lip.  
"Considering the low blood sugar thing? I - shouldn't tell you until you  
eat something..."  
"Kitty, I'm stronger than you think. I can take it. I bounce back from  
heavy stuff; like *that*."  
"I warned you," Kitty was still wincing. "Those kids? There's more  
than just these two. The base where Goldfinch works? They cooked up  
hundreds in one go. Andum... genetically speaking? Apart from the whole  
copy error thing? They *are* you."  
"Ah." The lights were growing dim. "I see." More than dim. The world  
was down the end of a long, dark tunnel. "Wunderbar..."  
All fall down.  
  
It was cold. Very cold. Charles kept reading, wishing that there was  
something positive at the end of the seemingly endless plethora of  
cruelty and death.  
The Base was one of many centres that was working on something they  
called the Enlisted Man. A genetically engineered mutant bred  
specifically to be cannon fodder for the good old US of A. Samples -  
some equating to the mass of an entire young body - came in from hunters  
all over the world.  
The hunters had one specific target, and that was 'visible' mutants.  
Those unfortunate enough to fall into that category were more likely to  
be second-generation mutations, and less likely to have a family that  
cared for them.  
Charles shuddered at the implication that, in the event of a family, a  
'tragedy' was relatively easy to manufacture.  
The Erlinstad sample, a sliver of muscle and skin from Kurt's left  
arm, was unique. Some chapters in Kenny's documentation were obviously  
written by people who hadn't seen the chapters on the origin of the  
sample. They were reverse-engineering a progenitor template from what  
they saw in the sample DNA.  
Considering the wide range of variations, they were fairly accurate.  
Then Charles came to the chapters delineating what happened to the  
clones, the observations on every detail of each duplicate, including  
the exact time indices of other clones' deaths.  
He felt like ice, all the way to his bones.  
Which is why the call from Wolverine was so welcome.  
"Logan," he almost sighed the name with relief. "What news?"  
"I got a lead of sorts. Sergeant Mulholland and I had a wierd - stuff  
competition down at his favourite watering hole. He won. Guess what some  
lady at Bayville General is missing?"  
"Twin fuzzy elves. A boy and a girl."  
Pause. "They're there, aren't they? The elf's got 'em, I know it."  
"I think our concern at the moment is the lady in hospital, Logan.  
Judging by the material we've found, her life may be in danger."  
"Yeah, sure. I know Goldfinch's type. I'll stick to the lady like glue  
until I can bring her there."  
  
"...urgh..."  
"*Told* you so. You like, totally fainted."  
"The twins! Where--?"  
"Relax. After they ate their fill, Ms Munroe took them to their new  
room. They're totally safe. *You* on the other hand, still need to eat  
something."  
Kurt managed a half-bow from his seat, "As you wish."  
"I saved you some. Well, I actually kinda made extra. Like a giant-  
size economy family value portion." Pleased at her foresight and cooking  
skills, she offered him a giant bowl filled with golden-brown, lumpish  
spheroids. "Like, mangia!"  
It smelled delightful, a rare quality in Kitty's cheffing attempts.  
Kurt speared one with a fork and risked a bite.  
Carbohydrates. Deep-frying oil. Rich, dense batter, and... "Corn?  
Carrots? *Broccoli*?" He usually didn't like these things. It had to be  
the blessed wrapping of batter.  
"Deep-fried vegetarian fritters!" Kitty announced, bouncing up and  
down on the spot. "The twins practically inhaled two batches before they  
even slowed down."  
"They have good taste," Kurt said around a mouthful. However Kitty had  
managed to find a never-fail recipe that lived up to its name, he didn't  
know. All he knew was that he had *calories*. What they were surrounding  
was, when he got down to it, secondary to the experience. "You've found  
a winner here, Kitty. This is *good*!"  
She grinned. Ah, that smile could last him for eons in DayDreamLand.  
"Glad you like it."  
"These would be excellent with a side of Bratwurst..."  
Kitty sighed. "So much for weaning you off of meat."  
"I can't help it if I have a high metabolism," Kurt shrugged.  
Now the thing with her eyes. She could melt the hardest soul with  
those eyes. "Couldn't you at least give it a try? For me?"  
_Must... resist..._ He could already feel his resolve weakening.  
"Sorry, Kitty. I worked it out, once. If I gave up meat, I'd have to eat  
every minute of the day." His fork rang against the bottom of the bowl.  
"Do you have any more of these?"  
"That was like, and entire *batch*..." she sank into depression.  
"Okay. I totally give up. I'll see if I can find you some -yicht-  
Bratwurst."  
"If it's any help, you won't have to touch it," Kurt offered.  
  
Dawn.  
Logan had, to all appearances, been dozing on a chair beside Dr Bain's  
hospital bed ever since he arrived. He'd told the hospital staff a  
plausible story about long-lost relations and played the burly-but-shy-  
about-it nice guy to the hilt.  
Lucky for him that they swallowed it.  
Also lucky for him that Bain, being the agitated sort about the twins,  
was spending most of her time tranked into oblivion. Otherwise his whole  
story would have been blown to pieces before he sat down.  
He wasn't good at acting.  
What he was good at, besides slashing things to pieces, was the  
closely related work of stopping *others* from slashing things to  
pieces. This included a form of meditation that looked remarkably like  
unconsciousness.  
He could even do a very lifelike snore if he felt like losing  
concentration on listening to everything around him. And that,  
considering the fact that hospital-grade antiseptics made his nose numb,  
was a dumb idea.  
If anything was going to happen, it was going to happen around dawn.  
"...but sir--"  
"No buts, citizen. This is important government business."  
Goldfinch. Right on time. Logan tracked the scumbag by sound,  
listening to the click and squeak of his boots on the linoleum floor. He  
skipped a beat when he entered the room, no doubt wondering who Logan  
was in relation to Bain.  
Logan let him get about two paces from the bed before he 'snapped'  
awake. "That's far enough, bub."  
"Who are you? Identify yourself or be prosecuted by the full force of  
the American Government." Goldfinch's hand drifted towards his concealed  
weapon.  
Logan smiled. "Me? I'm just Em's guardian angel. You can forget about  
going within spitting distance of her until this entire mess is sorted  
out. You're not the only people who can arrange for 'accidents' to  
happen."  
"...mrf..." Bain stirred into quasi-awareness. "My kids... where?"  
"They're safe, darlin'," said Logan as he watched Goldfinch. "Safe as  
houses."  
"Who?"  
"Just stay calm," Logan cautioned, moving between her and Goldfinch.  
"I'll see you out of here and re-united with your little family." He  
bared a set of adamantium claws and glared burning death at Goldfinch.  
"No matter what it takes."  
  
Breakfast.  
Kylie and Kenny had been bought downstairs by a surprisingly tender  
Logan. It was all Kitty could do, watching him, to restrain herself from  
pulling the little tykes out of slashing range.  
Yet the kids seemed to treat Logan as one gigantic amusement ride.  
Kurt mumbled a greeting to them around his umpty-umpth sausage. He was  
busy catching up with his lost weight and, according to Rogue, bets were  
being laid on how many platefuls the Nightcrawler would eventually  
demolish.  
Everyone agreed that the twins were one hundred percent adorable. They  
also agreed, after watching them eat, that Kurt had been lucky to hold  
out so long.  
Doctor Bain, still a little on the frail side, simply watched the  
goings-on with amusement. She spent a great deal of her breakfast time  
on translating for the twins.  
Kitty just observed, and tried to work out what was going on with whom  
by the flow of conversations.  
Okay. Dr Bain had smuggled the kids out, and had been planning a  
massive press conferance to blow this 'Enlisted Man' thing out of the  
water. The Professor, knowing how the public would react, was  
campaigning for a more subtle raid-and-ruin mission starring the X-Men,  
followed by discreet adoptions out to sympathetic parents.  
Ororo and Logan were talking cross-purposes about the logistics of  
shutting down a multi-national covert military research project. Where  
the whole debate over the plusses and minuses of the media was dragged  
around again.  
"*ELF*!" Logan barked, covering the flapjacks with an audible clang.  
"What? I'm way over here."  
Everyone looked up.  
Reaching for the flapjacks from above was the giggling Kenny, who was  
being held aloft by Kylie. She'd suspended him upside-down by his  
ankles, while she gripped the chandellier above with her prehensile  
feet.  
"We want our breakfast, please," chirped Kylie.  
"I - thought they couldn't 'port," said Jean.  
"Nien, they can't," said Kurt, "but they *can* jump."  
Scott was staring speculatively at the chandallier while Dr Bain  
recovered the kids. "We've *got* to raise that thing by about half a  
meter or so. Remove the temptation altogether."  
"Yeah," said Evan. "Can you imagine the mayhem with *three* elves in  
the house?"  
"Didn't Professor Xavier tell you?" Dr Bain asked. "There's roughly  
twelve surviving members of the Kappa series alone. Lord alone knows how  
many others were cloned from the Erlinst-- from Kurt's tissue sample..."  
A sudden bout of coughing made Nightcrawler the centre of attention.  
He recovered with a bout of near-hysterical laughter.  
"Heha... always wanted a big family," he managed, "haha. Heh.  
Heurgh..." and fell over in a dead faint.  
  
EPILOGUE:  
  
There *was* a media circus, but all the public got to see were the  
dead bodies, kept for analysis of the varying DNA strains. What they  
dubbed 'hideous mutations' were written off as the result of unlawful  
genetic manipulation.  
The fact that some orphaned children were involved was enough to spark  
a public debate that would last the rest of the year. Conspiracy  
theories abounded, and an entirely new genre of government-oriented  
suspicion was spawned.  
None of it touched the new "orphanage for special children", built on  
a quiet, wooded lot that Xavier willingly donated to the cause. While it  
wasn't quite what came into mind when one thought of PR, it did help the  
cause for mutantkind immensely.  
Families all over America were letting small mutants share their  
lives. Some had different genetic origins, and others looked almost  
normal, but each family knew that they were rearing a potential 'super'.  
The best part of it all, of course, was that each family didn't care  
about that. They had a child - or children - to love as their own.  
Goldfinch, from the reports of his last sighting, was livid.  
  
~End~  
  
=======================================================================  
Side-flings, references, homages, and downright rip-offs  
  
Yes, I deliberately called the good doctor Emily so she could be "Aunty  
Em". Thank you for noticing. She also suffers from "Starfleet Doctor's  
Syndrome", wherein any main doctor has a scary last name or nickname.  
["Bones", *Crush*er, *Bash*ir...]  
  
Poughkeepsie: Yes, there *is* a place called Poughkeepsie. It's  
somewhere near New York. The main reason I referenced it [besides the  
fact that an ancient Nightcrawler adventure *also* referenced it] is  
because it's the place of origin of a little comic series called [wait  
for it] ElfQuest.  
  
The twins are actually named after the South Park characters, Kyle and  
Kenny. There is no further resemblance.  
  
The kids' serial number is the meaning of life, the Universe and  
everything [42] followed by Trek's mystery number [47] followed by the  
birthday of someone close to me [18th of the 11th] :)  
  
Erlinstad is made up out of whole cloth, though I wouldn't be surprised  
if such a place existed. I just wanted something that sounded vaguely  
European-mountain-y.  
  
Steve and Dave bear absolutely no resemblance to anyone I know. Honest.  
They were just two handy names.  
  
I just happen to love the phrase, "decorum collapsed shortly  
thereafter". Lord alone knows where I picked it up, but I love it all  
the same.  
  
Potted Aspidestras: For the curious-minded, an Aspidestra is an indoors  
plant with huge, wide leaves and a great love of the shade. They were  
immensely popular in Victorian times as internal decoration. Now that  
the garden boffins have discovered verigated versions, they're on their  
way back. Nevertheless, as a child, I heard Gracie Fields sing "The  
Biggest Aspidestra in the World" and have been a changed person ever  
since. Colour me warped and twisted :) ;)  
  
"Ping. Definite hit." - paraphrased from Lois McMaster Bujold's  
wonderful novel, "Brothers in Arms". Look it and other Vorkosigan  
stories up, they're well worth the price of admission.  
  
"I've got new shoes on." -- stolen directly from an episode of  
"Monkey!". What can I say? I've had a very, very strange youth...  
  
Evan sings the theme song from "Star Blazers", aka "Starship Yamamoto".  
I *hate* that f*cking song :) ;)  
  
"Rats in the basement" is a deliberate and vague side-fling to a mini-  
anecdote in "Tea With the Black Dragon", where the heroine's chello  
instructor only ever said, "Dust on the floor" to her during classes.  
Obscure, yes, but a side-fling all the same.  
  
The "get it/got it/good" exchange is a tribute to the late, great Danny  
Kae, who was also an elf in his own right.  
  
"Who was going to see him down here?" -- If you said "Famous last words"  
or anything else to that effect, then congratulations, you just won  
yourself a jelly.  
  
"Nummy num nums" -- isn't this something all parents say to kids who  
won't eat their broccoli? If not, it definitely runs in *my* family.  
  
"...half a jar of elderly mayonnaise, some suspicious cheese, and a  
squishy tomato with white mould growing on it." -- see Terry Pratchett's  
"Mort" for his theory on fridge/food store raiding.  
  
How could things so small wind up costing so *much*? -- anyone who's  
shopped for baby gear will have the exact same question in mind. I  
swear, three outfits and your bill represents the gross national debt...  
  
Adams, of course, is a side-fling to "Patch Adams" :)  
  
The soapy frogs are a continuing in-joke of mine. It comes from one of  
the Red Dwarf books, where Rimmer is in the game "Better Than Life" and  
divorcing a ficticious wife. Exhibit Y-321 is a bucket of soapy frogs and  
a wetsuit with a hole cut out of the crotch. I liked the mental image so  
much that I decided to henceforth sneak it in wherever I could :)  
  
The noodle incident is stolen directly from Calvin and Hobbes. The  
point, of course, is that no-one knows exactly *what* the 'noodle  
incident' is :) Apart from the fact that noodles of one kind or another  
were involved. Maliciously so.  
  
We are never going to find what Kurt put the honey in, either. So ner.  
  
Shiny American dollars -- I can't remember where I got this from, but  
the gist of it is that an American [naturally] hires naifs for  
incredibly small amounts of money, and dresses it up with the word  
'shiny'.  
  
"Quiet, you," -- from the Simpsons episode where Homer goes back in time  
and, on the way, bumps into Sherman and Mr Peabody from _Rocky and  
Bullwinkle_.  
  
_Time is on My Side_ -- there's a psychothriller movie out there  
somewhere, I forget the title :#) where the killer is a demon that  
posesses folks, makes them kill, and has a penchant for singing that  
song a capella. And yes, I can and will reference *anything* if I think  
I can get away with it :) [Addendum: I've recently found out that the  
movie is called _The Fallen_ Big thanks to Ami!]  
  
"Then there was the strange incident of the bathtub in the night-  
time..." -- Sherlock Holmes. Paraphrased, of course, since the original  
mentioned a dog that did *not* bark, which is why the incident was so  
strange :)  
  
"...damned dirty ape." -- Come on. Seriously. You *DON'T* know where  
this is from? o.O *Sigh*... Okay. It's part of Charlton Heston's famous  
line in the classic "Planet of the Apes" movie. Satisfied? Now go catch  
up with your culture, you unwashed heathen, you ;)  
  
Kitty being on the thin side: This is an alarming quasi-trend with  
animation, and a personal bugbear of mine. I shan't rant much here  
[promise] but the progressively unrealistic body types in animation and  
kiddie's TV just sets up the stage for all sorts of nasty stuff. If you  
look, you realise just how toxic TV is these days.  
  
"As you wish." - liberated directly from _The Princess Bride_  
  
  
Anglo-German dictionary for this tale:  
  
Unglaublich: I've been told it's an 'impolite' version of unbelievable.  
I stole it from the comics and am completely unashamed :)  
schiezen: Uh... sh*t, more or less. I'm sure I spelled it wrong, anyway.  
Vas: What  
Furher: what they used to call Hitler. Pronounced Fyoor-rur.  
mien: my  
Ja: yeah  
Nein: no [we all knew that, didn't we?]  
Danke: Thanks  
Dankeschoen: Thanks very much  
Clappe: Shuddup  
Kluges kinder: Clever kid(s)  
Gott in himmel: God in heaven  
Herr: Sir. Pronounced "HAR" or "hair" depending on who you listen to :)  
Jawohl: formal 'yes'. Used to show keenness.  
Wunderbar: Wonderful  
Frauline: Miss [we knew that one, too, yes?]  
fantastiche: fantastic  
Schiss: sh*t [our fuzzy elf has something of a potty mouth...]  
lieblings: little loves/dear ones 


End file.
